Starbucks and Neighbourly.com have launched the coffee company’s annual #RedCupCheer campaign, which will see Starbucks donate £150,000 to local causes this Christmas.

Starbucks is donating 5p from every festive drink sold between 1st and 24th December to its Christmas community programme Red Cup Grants, with Starbucks partners and customers having nominated 250 charities across the country that will each receive a grant of either £500 or £1,000 depending on how much social media support they generate.

In order to try and win the higher amount of £1,000, the participating charities are asking supporters to follow them on Neighbourly.com and to tweet a selfie with their Red Cup using the hashtag #RedCupCheer until 24th December. The 50 charities achieving the most social media support will receive a Red Cup Grant of £1,000 while the 200 runners up will receive £500.

Social media support will be measured by Neighbourly.com, based on the total number of mentions for each of the charity names used with #RedCupCheer on Twitter. Support will also be measured by the total Neighbourly.com noise score as calculated and highlighted in each neighbourly cause page, the total number of social shares of the cause page from neighbourly.com, and the total number of followers for each cause page participating, with all scores combined to make a total score.

Simon Redfern, vice-president communications at Starbucks EMEA said:

“Red Cup Cheer is about supporting and celebrating the local charities that mean the most to our customers and partners. We’ve seen fantastic support for Red Cup Cheer and we hope the charities involved enjoy taking part and receiving recognition for the wonderful work they do to support our communities.”